<Begin Segment 13>

AI: Well, we're continuing on with our interview with Tsuguo Ikeda. And I wanted to take you back for a brief time, back to that incident at the assembly center that you mentioned about the shooting.

TI: Yes.

AI: Can you tell me what you recall about that time, that day, what, or when that happened?

TI: Well, it was a break from work, outside of the dining hall, room area. And, just being outside, enjoying the sunshine and relaxing, talking, conversing with others. And I recall very distinctly the cooks in a white coat, jacket and pants were maybe 20 feet away. And all of a sudden I heard a shot, and then I saw that one of the cooks was shot, because blood was coming out. But no record was made of this publicly or otherwise, and I never heard anything reported in the camp newspaper or anything else. It was something we didn't speak about, you know. But it really showed how dangerous it could be if you got right close to the fence. They told us to stay so many feet away from the fence, and that the soldier that fired could have been right legally, saying, "Okay, the person was leaning against the fence." but he wasn't doing anything, trying to run away. And so, but when you have, I'm assuming soldiers who were not used to us or scared of us, could say, they could be trigger-happy. And it was just too bad it happened.

AI: Do you recall hearing any kind of warning shout...

TI: No.

AI: ...from the guard?

TI: Not at all.

AI: And what were people's reactions when that happened?

TI: Well, we were scared. We didn't know what to do, actually. And actually I haven't ever really spoken about this with anyone else. Usually incident of this sort happens it would be in our camp newspaper, but it wasn't in there. But I've heard that everything that was printed like that had to be censored, so it could have been cut out. But I've read out of books, and there's no mention of anyone being killed, that time, so...

AI: Do you remember what happened immediately then after the shooting? Was there any medical care or...

TI: No, no. I think, I think I might have taken off, scared, just left. And so I, I really have no idea what happened to that person.

AI: And later on in, as life continued in the assembly center and there was no mention in the camp newspaper, and no one ever talked about it and you didn't hear about it, how did that leave you feeling?

TI: Well, it's part of the camp experience. The stuff that you go through, you just learn how to handle it and not complain about it, raise questions about it at all, but to obey. So that's what we did. We were very obedient as we were taught to be by our parents.

AI: Did that shooting incident leave you with any feeling that, that that might happen to you if you didn't obey?

TI: Yeah. Oh, yes. That was very loud and clear, that there's certain limits that you shouldn't do. And later in life I didn't keep it, those same values. But I felt during the camp experience, we really had to be serious about staying away from the fences. Although in Minidoka, we were allowed to go out to pick sagebrush for decorative purposes. So those particular soldiers didn't seem to be that uptight about it.

AI: But at that time at the assembly center, it was a very serious situation?

TI: Yeah. It was such a new experience for everybody including the soldiers, that -- but we felt helpless, of course. What could we really do? So...

AI: So even with something as serious as a man being killed, you felt you couldn't do anything?

TI: Yeah, felt powerless and just accepted it, that it happened. And I feel that's kind of resignation attitude, helped us, our cultural values, helped us to deal with the harshness of the living conditions. And because we were taught the better you're able to deal with hardship, the better person you are. So I remember in Minidoka, especially in the wintertime, it was either raining all the time, it was just mud all over, sloshing through and sloshing into the classroom or the bitter cold, snow, 10 or 15 degrees below zero, and just walking through that to get to where you want to go. And felt a sense of pride of being tough, being a man. And with that kind of attitude, it helped adjustment, rather than just complain about it.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2000 Densho. All Rights Reserved.